Category Archives: Mark Levine

Attorney general candidate Tish James made a campaign appearance on West 109th Street in the final hours of election day. James was joined by Assembly Member Danny O’Donnell, Council Member Mark Levine and members of the La Guardia High School Democrats.

Mayoral candidates fighting and occasionally smiling, a governor working his fellow electeds and the cameras, a hometown president passing through. Those are among the images in our 2017 photo retrospective.

Shot entirely in the five boroughs, our photo retrospective reflects our 2017 focus on the mayoral election and particularly on challengers looking to defeat Mayor de Blasio. There’s more, however, with a mix of light moments, conflict and loss.

State Senator Adriano Espaillat led a group of supporters up Broadway Saturday afternoon, looking for attention and votes ahead of Tuesday’s 13th Congressional District primary. The Espaillat caravan included about 50-75 walkers and 20-25 cars, all led by the flag-bedecked Espaillat campaign bus. The caravan began with a public endorsement of Espaillat by State Senator Bill Perkins who, together with Council Members Ydanis Rodriguez and Mark Levine, joined Espaillat for the walk uptown.

The race to succeed Charles Rangel has become increasingly racially driven in the past several days, with numerous allegations of impropriety. In a brief pre-walk Q&A with reporters Perkins dismissed allegations by Assembly Member Keith Wright that Espaillat and his supporters are trying to suppress African American voter participation in the Tuesday election. Espaillat stood by silently as Perkins spoke, only offering that he’s asked the Department of Justice to monitor the election in order to “make sure that everybody has access to vote unimpeded.”

Espaillat’s reception was good, but not overwhelming, as he walked up Broadway from 135th. The very modest reaction in the first 10-15 blocks increased as he passed through the northern stretch of Harlem and into the heavily Dominican Washington Heights. Cheers and shouts rang out further uptown, with some downtown drivers rolling down their windows to shake hands with the uptown traveling candidate. There were no signs or displays of support for any of the many other candidates in this election. The only contrary expression (at least as far as a non-Spanish speaking reporter could discern) was a small group of men near 175th Street chanting “Trump, Trump, Trump.”

A long contemplated New York City ban on carriage horses returned to center stage Tuesday, following news of a proposed city council bill. A proposed bill is expected next week, with committee hearings and a vote expected over the next several months. Mayor de Blasio has been a strong advocate of such a ban, calling for an immediate ban as a mayoral candidate, although he’s not acted to implement such a ban during his 11 months in office.

Mayor de Blasio Comments:

Mayor de Blasio was asked about the expected bill three times during an unrelated press conference on Tuesday. Questions included what he plans to do to get the bill passed, a ban’s likely effect on tourism in the City and whether he intends to engage in any political “horse trading” to win passage of the bill.